Morning Brief — May 9, 2013

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Military intervention in Syria still an option — Will Harper stay? — Movement afoot to oust Clark — It can only get worse in B.C. — Government needs to grow up on climate change — Using the atmosphere as an open sewer — Millions in taxpayer-funded consulting work kept secret — Conservatives spent millions to monitor own MPs — Status of women committee shuts down testimony on controversial First Nations bill — Number of aboriginal children in foster care stuns experts — And, Old Spock vs. New Spock.

Two days after an emergency debate on Syria, Canada’s three major political parties seem to agree that Canada should not rule out military intervention in the war-torn Middle Eastern country just yet. However, the parties vary on their commitment to keeping that door open, with the Liberals being the clearest so far. While stressing they prefer a political solution over a military one, the party’s foreign affairs critic, Bob Rae, said it’s about striking a balance between threatening the use of military intervention and actually following through with that threat.

Here’s a question: Will Stephen Harper stay? That’s what people are wondering as time starts to run short for him to decide if he’ll gun for a fourth term. If he holds off too long, he’ll leave his successor with no time before the next election. If Harper turns his falling numbers around by the end of the year, he is almost certain to run again. But if he hasn’t reversed the extraordinary rise of Justin Trudeau by then, Lawrence Martin says he’ll turn out the lights.

With the B.C. election drawing near, there’s already an organized movement within the provincial Liberal party with the sole mission of ousting Christy Clark if the party loses. Called the 801 Club, it symbolizes 8:01 p.m., one minute after the election and precisely when the movement plans to begin the process of putting pressure on Clark to step aside. The club — made up of party members and business leaders — has already created their own buttons.

The government needs to ‘grow up’ when it comes to climate change. That was the message from a group of 12 prominent Canadian climate scientists who called out federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver on his support for the expansion of oil infrastructure in a letter released yesterday. The scientists wrote that building pipelines and developing fossil fuel production delays the transition to an economy that relies less on oil and gas. Among them was David Keith, a Canadian who teaches at Harvard University. He told CBC News the government needs to represent two important but very different needs of the country: climate change and resource development.

Most federal departments are not following government guidelines that encourage them to tell the public just what they’re getting for the millions of dollars spent on management consulting. An investigation by the Toronto Star has found that 90 per cent of the $2.4 billion paid out for management consulting by federal departments in the past decade come with no description of the work done on the government’s public disclosure sites.

There’s no question about what this money bought. New documents tabled in the House earlier this week show that the Harper government has spent more than $23 million over the last two years on media monitoring — including more than $2.4 million tracking some of its own backbench MPs in television interviews, radio and print. News of this left MPs who’d been monitored a bit bewildered.

Tempers flared last night as evening votes in the House cut short the last meeting the status of women committee had dedicated to testimony on controversial Bill S-2. Dubbed the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, the bill seeks to give aboriginal women legal protections and property rights in the case of a spouse’s death or of marital breakdown.

Nearly half of children under 14 in foster care in Canada are aboriginal children — a number that exceeds even the grimmest estimates of a leading First Nations child welfare advocate. Newly released data from the National Household Survey suggest that, of the approximately 30,000 children in care in Canada in 2011, 14,225 were aboriginal. Overall, four per cent of aboriginal children were in foster care, compared to a scant 0.3 per cent of non-aboriginal children, or 15,345 children.

Peter Hall, chief economist for Export Development Canada, will deliver the agency’s 2013 forecast for the global and Nova Scotia economies in Halifax.

Statistics Canada will release the new housing price index for March this morning.

There’s a National March for Life demonstration taking place on the Hill.

Back to Life Canada will host a press conference on the Hill regarding the issue of women being bullied into unwanted abortions and its negative effects on women.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkag, Mark Mander, chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, MP John Weston and OPP deputy commissioner Scott Tod will hold a national media conference to announce the National Prescription Drug Drop-Off Day.

University of Ottawa president Allan Rock is speaking at the Canadian Club of Ottawa to give a speech on the “Skills mismatch and the myth of the irrelevant University.”

International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird will attend the annual Europe Day celebrations in Ottawa.

Gary Goodyear, minister of State for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, will be on hand to officially open the McMaster Automotive Resource Centre. The new $26-million facility will enable researchers to develop, design and test an electric or hybrid car.

NDP Leader Adrian Dix takes part in a Twitter townhall at a Vancouver radio station tonight.

In committees:

The public safety committee will get a briefing on the security of rail transport.

The finance committee will hear from senior finance officials on Bill C-60, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21.

In House affairs, MPs will hear from other MPs on the report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario 2012.

Agriculture committee will hear from beekeepers, Canadian Honey Council and Health Canada on losses in honey bee colonies.

The Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee will hear witnesses on Bill C-299, kidnapping of young persons.

Languages commissioner Graham Fraser will appear at a committee with department officials to discuss Main Estimates 2013-14 under Privy Council.

And in Featured Opinion, we have:

Glen Hodgson of the Conference Board of Canada looks at America’s two-track economy: on one track, the private sector — recovering nicely — and on the other track, the public sector — bleeding from one self-inflicted wound after another.

Israel’s recent decision to launch air attacks on Syria to prevent loose weapons from making their way to Hezbollah was based on a series of assumptions about Syrian and Iranian behaviour, write Daniel Byman and Natan Sachs of Foreign Policy. If they’re wrong about any of them, they argue, the result could see Syria’s civil chaos spilling over into a regional war.

“Progress ended with frozen pizza,” quipped Bruce Willis in one of the Die Hard sequels. Wonder how he’d feel about new 3-D printing technology which lets you build your own handgun — anywhere in the world with Internet access and a wall socket? “For gun advocates in the United States,” writes Farhad Manjoo of Slate, “the beauty of the 3-D weapon is that it shifts gun control from a fight centered on the Second Amendment to one focused on the First.”

Finally this morning, what do you get when Old Spock battles New Spock? Perhaps the greatest car commercial ever. Don’t worry. You don’t have to be a Trekkie to appreciate this one.